100 Bottles of Wine and Still Sober
by jadey36
Summary: The one time Athos finds drowning his sorrows easier said than done. Short fic, missing scene, episode 3, Commodities.


_'Missing scene' for The Musketeers BBC, episode 3, Commodities._

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**100 Bottles of Wine and Still Sober**

One hundred glass balloons, filled with crimson wine, stoppered, ready to drink.

Athos's mouth watered at the sight, or at least it would have if his mouth still had any saliva left in it. He licked his dry lips.

"I'd kill for a drink," he said, his voice a dry croak.

The words had run through his head many times since he'd been in the cellar, but this was the first time he'd said them aloud. Not that it would to do him any good. There was no one to hear him.

He lifted his eyes from the dusty, grime-coated floor to stare once again at the onion-shaped bottles, their watery red contents taunting him, out of reach. Athos swallowed dryly and briefly tortured himself imagining the fine wine flooding his mouth, coating the back of his throat, burning warmly in his belly.

He placed his hands on the floor, palms down and heaved. A sharp pain ran the length of his spine. His legs, weighted down by the heavy timbers and rubble of what had once been part of the cellar wall, had lost all feeling, a blessed relief from the earlier agony.

Athos cursed both the woman who'd torched his house and his own need to drink to forget her and the things he'd done. He also cursed the fact that he'd decided to return to his fire-ravaged home to torment himself further and to drink himself blind, away from the pitying looks of his Musketeer friends, d'Artagnan in particular, who knew the truth of the fire.

The cellar had escaped the flames, as he thought it might, but the inferno up above had weakened the timbers and walls below, as Athos found out the moment he pounded down the cellar stairs.

On that day, as he lay trapped beneath the fallen masonry, Athos realised he wanted to live more than he wanted to die. The thought surprised him.

Three days ago, he listened out for his friends, hoping to hear them coming to his aid. It was a desperate hope. Only d'Artagnan knew what had gone on in the Comte de la Fère's former home and he would have no reason to think that Athos would want to torture himself further by returning to the blackened remains.

Two days ago, Athos laughed hysterically after trying to cup a bleeding hand between his thighs so he could catch his piss. It was liquid, after all. He ended up with a wet hand and nothing else.

Yesterday, he made a grab for the rat that scurried past his bruised face several times a day. Blood was liquid, after all. He swiped and missed, swiped and missed.

"You little bastard," he rasped, pointing an imaginary musket at the rat.

A piece of crumbled stonework near to him raised his spirits for a short while. He would throw it at the nearest bottles. They would fall from their shelves and smash and the wine would flow along the cracks in the stone floor and creep towards his thirsting mouth. He threw and missed, threw and missed.

"Shit."

He deliberately taunted himself with memories of earlier times, when he was happy and in love and, after that, with images of his once thought dead but very much alive wife. Tears were liquid, after all. It seemed his tear ducts, like his throat, were as dry as a waterless riverbed in a drought.

Only when Porthos cried out, "I've found him. He's here," to Aramis and d'Artagnan, did unbidden tears leak from his eyes.

While Aramis and d'Artagnan carefully removed the timbers and rubble from his legs and back, Porthos cradled his head, rattling off soothing words and cursing Athos for a fool.

Once they'd freed him, Porthos offered him wine from one of the glass balloons.

"Water, goddamn it!" Athos shot at him.

"My God!" Porthos exclaimed. "Gentleman, I think we've just witnessed a miracle."

The miracle didn't last long.

Two days later, bandaged and bruised, one leg in a splint, Athos returned to his barrack rooms and drank the lone bottle of wine he found hidden under his bed. He threw the empty bottle away and smiled to himself.

In the ruined cellar of his ruined house were 100 glass balloons, filled with crimson wine, stoppered, ready to drink.

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_**Author's Note: **I'll be getting back to writing some more Robin Hood in a month or so (when the UK school holidays are over). In the meantime, I'm dipping my toe into another fandom - a kind of fic holiday, if you like._

_I hope all my readers/followers are enjoying the summer months (of course, it may be winter if you're on the other side of the world!)._


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